A talented and gentle soul left the world on July 29. Larry Ravdin was born on April 3, 1940 to Eli and Ida Ravdin in Newark, NJ. He lived in a family where there “was always music on the radio”. As Larry grew up he listened to the sounds of Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong and Dinah Shore.

His career path was cemented when he heard the school orchestra from his 4th grade classroom and knew it was something he “wanted to participate in.”

Larry started his music lessons in school, and by age 11 was in the school orchestra playing the saxophone. Later on, he added both the clarinet and flute to his repertoire.

Larry’s teacher, Al Senerthia, a former Big Band musician who played with the Dorseys, Vaughn Monroe and others steered him into swing studies, which led to performing with “territory bands,” playing golf and country clubs, military bases, and Grange halls in the rural areas.

Larry arrived in the Catskills when friends who worked at the Tamiment introduced him to some band leaders, and then other friends got him into Grossinger’s. In 1967 he arrived at the Concord Hotel where he performed for many years. He remembered Vic Damone as his first “big celebrity” at the Pines Hotel in South Fallsburg.

Larry considered himself a “musical actor,” having played so many different styles over the years from opera at the Met to Broadway musicals, Motown soul, Las Vegas shows, Basie-type bands and many others.

Thanks to another friend, Larry enjoyed another venue aboard Holland America cruise ships. He spent winters cruising, and spring and summers at the resort hotels. Because of his work with the cruise line, Larry got to see the world - his favorite ports included Sydney, Australia; St. Petersburg, Russia; Hong Kong; and Cape Town, South Africa. And he was fortunate, he says, to visit the homes of some famous composers and authors including Edvard Grieg, Robert Lewis Stevenson and Ernest Hemingway.

The list of celebrities Larry worked with reads like a “Who’s Who” of musical entertainment, and includes Red Buttons, Paul Anka, Liberace, Neil Sedaka, Bobby Rydell, Shirley MacLaine, Rita Moreno, Ben Vereen, Liza Minelli, Jim Nabors, Natalie Cole, Jerry Lewis, Lesley Gore and dozens of others, in addition to two of his favorite performers Gregory and Maurice Hines. And besides the hotels already mentioned, he also worked at Kutsher’s, the Raleigh, Nevele, Fallsview, the Granite, and a host of bungalow colonies.

A fascinating storyteller, Larry could tell stories for hours about the people he performed with - over 100 of them.

Toward the end of his life, Larry performed weekly both at Sorella’s in Kauneonga Lake and the Callicoon Center Band.

Ever humble, Larry boiled down his life simply, “I was just a musician in the orchestra.”

He was pre-deceased by his parents and by his sister Marilyn, and leaves behind some cousins, former colleagues and many, many friends. 

A memorial is being planned for a future date.